SGA Minutes
September 5, 2010
7:10 – Sophie Papavizas’11 calls the meeting to order
Roll Call
Assembly Members Present: Katie Dahl ’11, Liz Ritchie ’11, Miranda Hansen-Hunt ’11, Aki Snyder ’11, Jennifer Savage ’12, Blair Smith ’12, Sarah Kelley ’11, Gabby Marangell ’12, Priya Gupta ’13, Sam Salazar ’11, Lindsey Turr ’11, Heather Taddonio ’12, Kyle Aguilar ’13, Akshyeta Suryanarayan ’13, Keshia Koech ’13, Ali Raeber ’13, Hope Wayman ’13, Kate Gould ’11, Jordan Cottrell ’13, Sarah Schnellbacher ’13, Sarah Abbasi ’12, Anna Perrochi ’12, Emily Zhao ’11, Vrinda Varia ’13, Sarah Capasso ’11, Priya Saxena ’12, Katharine Woolls ’12, Tiffany Olszuk ‘12
Assembly Members Absent: Malina Toza ’13, Joo Park ’11, Mary Margaret Peebles ’13, Naznen Rahmen ’13, Jenny Wang, Sarah Henkind ’13, Callie Jensen ’11, Sumehda Niranjan ‘11
Community Members Present: Elizabeth Held ’12, Mae Carlson ’12, Madeline Vellturo ’11, Vaughan Higgins ’14, Angela Allard ’14, Kelly Wilkinson ’14, Ivy Gray-Klein ’14, Yuxi Wang ’14, Sara Jane Rodgers ’13, Hillary Tervet ’14, Lynn Moss ’14, Emma Rosenblum ’14, Judy Yeung ’14, Gabrielle Fiorillo, Kaitlyn Holm ’14, Elena Nikonova ’14, Kate ’14, Ashley Han ’14, Kayla Bondi ’14, Saima Iqbal ’14, Megan Clark ’11, Duong Nguyen ’13, Saba Qadir ’13, Aya Martin-Seaver ’13, Sarah Ann Jordan ’13, Elizabeth Olecki ’12, Zandra Martinez ‘11
Announcements
Sarah Kelley ’11: I’m pleased to announce that there is going to be a new round of elections.Nominations open tonight at midnight. Email me to nominate anyone. The open positions include: SoCo Head(s), Off Campus Rep, Faculty Rep, COPS Head(s), OIA Rep, CEO Rep, Members at Large (6), Class of 2014 President(s), and Board of Trustees Representative. All of these are one year positions, except Board of Trustees Rep. All these positions are open to freshmen, but please look into everything before you run. Voting will take place on Monday the 20th and Tuesday the 21st. You can email me at skelley@bmc or elections@bmc if you have any questions.
Sadie Marlow ’11: This is new and unofficial, but we’re putting together a yearbook committee.They’ve put them together in the past, but no one knows about them, and I know that as a senior this year, I would like a really awesome yearbook. You can email me at smarlow@bmc or talk to Carolyn Lloyd if you’re interested.
Sam Salazar ’11: This is an announcement for our kickoff concert/glowstick party on September 18th. White Panda is going to be there, they’re awesome. The doors open at 8 and the show starts at 9 in TGH. There will be posters and stuff soon.
Blair Smith ’12 and Jen Savage ’12: We just wanted to say thanks for making Parade Night great. We couldn’t have done it without you. If you’ve lost anything contact Public Safety, they have lots of stuff.
Elizabeth Held ’12: I’m the Bi-Co News editor, and I’m going to be covering the meetings.There’s a no quote list going around, so if you don’t want to be quoted in any articles, make sure to put your name down. Let me know if you have questions.
Laurel Lemon ’11: Thanks for coming to my budget meetings this weekend. Interview sign ups are coming up soon, and all the information can be found on Blackboard.
Susie Kim ’11: These are some of the honor board cases heard last semester. We’ve left out the class years and departments for anonymity.
Introduction of the Executive Board and Welcome to SGA
Sophie Papavizas ’11: So now we’re going to do a quick introduction of the Executive Board.I’m Sophie, class of 2011 and I’m SGA President.
Yong Jung Cho ’12: I’m Yong Jung, I’m a junior and I’m the Vice President.
Susie Kim ’11: I’m Susie, I’m a senior and I’m the Honor Board Head.
Laurel Lemon ’11: I’m Laurel, I’m a senior and I’m the Treasurer
Julia Aranda ’11: I’m Julia, I’m a senior and I’m the Secretary.
Sophie: We’ve switched around the agenda for today just to clarify some things, so we’re going to do Your Two Cents in a little bit. If you have questions, you can email us at sga@bmc, or you can talk to us at the end of the meeting. Sorry if you already know what I’m about to present, but we have to go over this again. These are some of the slides I used in the SGA 101 presentations; all of the information is on the blog or in the yellow planner you should have gotten in your mailbox. Assembly members, please email us if you’re going to be absent, so we know when to plan on major votes. An important matter of note, all voting is done by hand count, the Exec Board will specify what kind of vote is going on. A Representative Council vote means that you can only vote if you have an elected position. Co-held positions get one vote total. There are sometimes straw votes, which give everyone in the room an opportunity to vote. Are there any questions?
Sarah Schnellbacher ’13 – I’m Haffner Dorm President, does each tower get a vote, or do we have to share a single vote?
Sophie: Haffner only gets one vote between the three towers. For meeting discussions, we try to set a time limit, but we can motion to extend time. Yong Jung keeps the speaking order, and once she acknowledges you, it means you can put your hand down and you’ll be called on when it’s your turn in the speaking order. You have to be called on by me to speak, and you must be on the main floor. We have some important dates to announce, like this year’s Plenary, which is on October 3rd. It’s later than normal due to the Heritage and Hope Conference. The Exec Board attended a Seven Sisters Leadership Conference over Spring Break at Barnard, and this November, we’re going to be hosting the conference. All Assembly members must volunteer, because there’s going to be a lot of things to do. It should be fun.As a direct result of the conference, we’ve made some changes, like the way we work with the dorm elected freshmen representatives. We’ve decided to give these elected dorm reps something to do especially with the conference. We’d love to have some experienced assembly members volunteer to help out the freshmen, and give them advice. Any questions?
Now we’re going to divide up into small groups, counting off by six. Please don’t go to a group of people you know, we want to try to get people to meet each other.
I think it’s important to establish why everyone’s here, so after you’ve introduced yourselves, please talk about why you’re here, like if you want to hold an elected position, or if you already hold a position. Once you’ve finished introducing yourselves, please talk about some issues on campus that you’d like to see get fixed or changed.
New School Year Kick-Off/Get to Know You
Heather Taddonio ’12: Some of the issues our discussed were that facilities has been watering the lawns during the day, and it wastes water and is bad for the grass. We also think the Blue Bus schedule is kind of inconvenient if you want to have back to back Bryn Mawr, Haverford classes, and lab times for science classes should be a little more flexible.
Jordan Cottrell ’13: Our issue is that we would like to look into changing the Haffner room draw application to encourage more language speaking in the dorm, and we also think putting more lights in front of Brecon would be good.
Julie Ershardi ’11: We have 3 issues we discussed. Over the summer storage for international and West coast students is entirely inadequate. Spring semester transfers could use more attention and the third issue is the financial aid changes if you get outside funding.
V’14: We talked about student legal rights on campus in residential areas, sexual violence on campus that’s kept silent, and class scheduling conflicts.
Aya Martin-Seaver ’13: Our group talked about a lot, and a major issue we have it that there’s no communication between a lot of departments, and policy makers. Decisions were made over the summer about things that we would have liked to know about, like the new sushi option in Haffner, and the bike rack that is gone in front of the campus center. Also the changes to the Halloween party were not made really clear to the students. We’d like to know about things before they happen.
Keshia Kooch ’13: We talked about 2 things; one that was touched on was encouraging more student attendance for student activities, and encouraging more connections between groups on campus. We also talked about the Bryn Mawr Bubble, and about how seniors face a reality shock when they go out into the real world, maybe having a senior seminar to help prepare people for life after Bryn Mawr would be good.
Sophie: Any reactions?
Katie Dahl ‘11: In response to Aya/Group 5, talking about Halloween, I know that after the 2008 party, we had a lot of discussion about it during SGA, I still think increased communication would be good, but I think losing emails can be an issue.
Sophie: These discussions are part of a process we’re going to be starting, things you want to start working and thinking about. We’ll put these into a list and they’ll be emailed to you, and we’ll continue to talk about these next week. We do have a couple more things to talk about, so we’re moving onto Your Two Cents.
Your Two Cents
Saba Qadir ’13: I’m on the Health Center Advisory Board, we meet with Dr Kerr and we try to get the word about changes to the Health Center. Our website is brynmawr.edu/healthcenter.We’ve been talking about having a possible panel at a future SGA meeting to let people ask questions about anything relating to the Health Center. Is anyone interested in having someone come to speak? We’re having a table at Fall Frolic, with a question box to ask anonymous questions.
Liz Ritchie ‘11: Was the change in Health Center hours simply due to budgeting? I’ve used the Health Center more than once at 2am and I was sober every time.
Saba Qadir ‘13: I think budgeting was an issue, but I don’t know for sure if that was the only reason.
Sophie: They were planning on changing the hours next semester, but I don’t know why it’s been changed now. It’s hard to hire a night nurse, and our current one just sent in her resignation. There’s a new Res Life position, the Graduate Assistant, and they’re taking over a lot of the responsibilities of the night nurse. Also the new dean is interested in hearing your opinions. She’ll be coming in two weeks and again for the Big Cheese meeting later in the semester.
Jordan Cottrell ’13: Are the Graduate Assistants able to give out over the counter meds?
Sophie: No, but they can take you to the hospital. Okay, does anyone have anything else for Your Two Cents? Is there any old business? New business?
Old Business
New Business
8:17 – Meeting adjourned.